Little One will have a name!!!

We have decided on the baby's name (two months to due date today, not bad, lol)!! Drum roll please....

Boy: Connor William Lovell
Girl: Hayden Stella Lovell

Connor is the name Kaya would have been had she been a boy. At that time, we were debating between William and Burton for the middle name. We both preferred the sound of William and it is a family name on both sides of Mark's family. I was really pushing for Burton, named after one of my 'other' moms Stephanie Burton who lost her battle with breast cancer in 2003. To be honest, if Kaya had been a boy we probably would have gone with Burton b/c I was adamant that we use a name in memory of Stephanie.

Fast forward a few years and to this pregnancy. This little one was conceived either the very end of July or very early August (nope, I do not know the exact date as there were a few to choose from, lol). This was just a little over one month after Jenna lost her battle with Leukemia and with her sweet baby Will (William) was lost. I had talked to Jenna about how we would be starting for #2 soon, so the timing seemed like she had a part in that. When I found out I was pregnant, I was really emotional (both still attempting to deal with Jenna's and Will's loss, and also the thought of being pregnant while she was not able to be anymore). Then I thought about our boy name that we had decided upon years prior to meeting Jenna. Right there, it was decided for both Mark and I that Connor William would be this one's name if indeed we were having a boy. While William is a family name and was Jenna's choice for her fourth child as a first name, it just seemed like it was meant to be and Jenna knew that all along.

Now for a girl's name... this has taken the entire pregnancy to decide, LOL. Way before Kaya was born, before she was conceived, Mark came up with Kaya (short for kayak as we used to do a far amount, plus it was an actual name so that helped, lol). After coming up with Kaya's name in that fashion, we felt compelled to have a similar story to go with another girl's name... talk about pressure!! Well, after nothing hitting us at all... except for a brief (and I stress brief) moment where Mark thought Ricki (pronounced Rick-a) was the perfect name (as it does have great origin and he loved the sound of it). I was not in love at all with the name. It is pretty and everything.... just didn't hit me. I have reached out to all who are willing for ideas on a girl's name... tons of great ideas came of this! Then a co-worker of mine suggested Hayden... and I immediately said 'yes'. This reminded me of a little girl (who is like 14-15 yrs old now, dang I feel old) that was in my 3 yr class at the daycare I worked at years ago.. her name is Hayden, and I loved the name then.

Mark loved Hayden as well, so that was decided! Now, the middle name. I still want to remember Stephanie. That is sort of our thing... the middle name of our kids will be a name in memory or one passed down from family/friends. Kaya's middle name is Elizabeth which is a name all over Mark's family, plus he is second generation born in USA from England, so Elizabeth seemed fitting, LOL. I have had the idea to combine Stephanie/Lynn (Steph's middle name) and Jenna/Lee (Jenna's middle name) somehow. I wrote out a lot of names and looked through the name book... and came up with Stella ('Ste' for Stephanie and 'le' written backwards for Lee). I came up with this about a week ago and asked Mark what he thought... he really liked it. We ran it by Kaya as well and she approves, LOL.

While a name or two (first and middle) might not require this much thought... for some reason we seem to do just that, lol. It feels good to have both names decided upon before I go into labor!! For awhile there, I was thinking that was what we would talk about while I was in labor, lol. Nothing wrong with that of course, many wonderful people have been born without names, like myself for example!!!